Last week video emerged of Jeremy Corbyn comparing ISIS to the US. This morning he’s gone one better with a Milne-esque apologia for Putin’s aggression in the FT:

“I am no defender whatsoever of Putin or Russian foreign policy any more than I defend the west’s foreign policy but I do feel nervous about [NATO] expansion eastward”

Ah, that old classic: “I don’t support Putin, but…”

Who does he blame for the Ukraine crisis?

“I think Nato is a cold war product, I think Nato historically should have shut up shop in 1990 along with the Warsaw Pact; unfortunately it didn’t. It now seems to have given itself . . . a global role and now is very busy expanding eastward… I think the important thing is that there be a better-developed relationship with Russia and [efforts to] demilitarise on both sides of the border [with Ukraine] . . . The onus is on both sides to make that happen.”

Back before the election Farage was torn a new one by Labour’s shadow Europe minister Pat McFadden over his stance on Putin. At the time McFadden also warned:

“the political forces President Putin admires are those… of the populist left”

He’ll be first up against the wall when Corbyn’s shadow cabinet reshuffle comes…